Hear a Congressional Hearing on Canandian National’s EJ&E RR Purchase

Just got the following email from the office of Congressman Don Manzullo. Thought you might be interested. You can find the 16th District Congressman’s remarks here.

EDITOR’S NOTE – The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is currently holding a hearing to address proposed legislation that would require more consideration of safety concerns in rail transactions. The bill could affect Canadian National Railway’s proposed purchase of the EJ&E line. You can watch the hearing live by clicking on the “Live Web Cast” here.

Manzullo Testifies for Legislation to

More FullyConsider Safety Concerns of

Increased Rail Traffic

Bill needed to address hazards created by

CN’s purchase of EJ&E line in northern Illinois

[WASHINTGON] Congressman Don Manzullo (R-Egan) today testified before the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on the need for legislation to ensure safety concerns are fully addressed before new freight rail service can enter a community.

The bipartisan Taking Responsible Action for Community Safety (TRACS) Act (HR 6707), which Manzullo cosponsored, would require the government to weigh the safety of the people and costs to communities against benefits to the railroads and transportation network. For a merger to proceed, the adverse impacts on communities could not outweigh the transportation benefits. The STB also would have the authority to set stricter safety conditions.

Manzullo spoke for the bill on behalf of the tens of thousands of McHenry County motorists and Metra commuters who would face serious delays and safety hazards in Barrington if the Canadian National Railway is allowed to purchase the EJ&E line. CN plans to run 15 to 20 extra freight trains through Barrington and other suburbs each day, threatening the safety of residents and motorists, causing massive traffic backups, and forcing taxpayers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to try to mitigate the problems.

The EJ&E line has at-grade crossings with Route 14, Route 59 and Lake-Cook Road in downtown Barrington. All three of those crossings – which are the main arteries in and out of Barrington — could be blocked at the same time by a long freight train, possibly preventing emergency vehicles from responding in a timely fashion. In addition, school buses cross the EJ&E tracks in Barrington 840 times a day.

The Surface Transportation Board (STB), the government agency that considers rail transactions, recognized in its draft Environmental Impact Statement that CN’s proposal would greatly increase safety hazards but acknowledged the railroad could get away with funding just 5 to 10 percent of the costs to relieve the problems they are creating. Barrington officials have suggested the only real way to fully mitigate the hazard is to remove the at-grade crossings by building a mile-long rail trench under the three at-grade rail crossings at a cost of about $300 million. CN has offered to pay only a total of $40 million to fix all the problems associated with the proposal, including mitigating the safety hazards at all 133 at-grade crossings along the route.

“The insanity of this process is that the STB acknowledges this rail deal would cause significant safety hazards in Barrington and the other communities but does very little to require Canadian National to mitigate the dangers. Taxpayers would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to correct the problems,” Manzullo said. “This legislation is necessary to ensure taxpayers and communities are protected and deals are only approved if the benefits outweigh the costs.”


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